Crime Weekly - S3 Ep116: West Memphis Three: Satanic Panic (Part 2)

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

West Memphis, Arkansas is located in Crittenden County and is directly across the Mississippi River from Memphis Tennessee, but in 1993, West Memphis and Memphis were worlds apart. Memphis boasted a healthy and growing population of over 620 thousand, while West Memphis had just over 28 thousand residents. But Memphis, TN struggled with high crime rates, with 1993 setting a record for the most homicides in one year, a record that wasn’t broken until 2016. West Memphis Arkansas had a more small town, laid back feel, and as cliche as it sounds, people felt safe leaving their doors unlocked and letting their young children play outside all day with no supervision. That was until May 5th, 1993, when three eight year old boys rode away on their bikes, eager to expel the energy they had built up all day while sitting in their second grade classrooms at Weaver Elementary School, but they never came home. It wouldn’t be long before the residents of West Memphis and then the world found out what happened to Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers. Their battered and mutilated bodies were found the next day in a swampy wooded area known to locals as Robin Hood Hills, and the community of West Memphis felt a shockwave hit their community that they would not recover from for some time. Within a month three teenagers were arrested and charged with capital murder, and it wasn’t long before whispers of witchcraft, devil worship and occult killings rippled throught the homes and businesses of West Memphis, and those whispers eventually turned into a loud roar, a roar that might accompany an angry mob looking for someone to blame for an unimaginable tragedy, akin to the infamous witch hunts that are dotted throughout history. This is the story of six boys from West Memphis, Arkansas; three were brutally murdered and stolen from this world far before their time, the other three were marched to the proverbial gallows, guilty in the court of public opinion, and found guilty in an actual court of law. Six lives destroyed, six lives forever changed, six lives eternally tied together. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. SurfShark Go to https://Surfshark.deals/crimeweekly and use code crimeweekly to get 83% off a 2 year plan plus 3 extra months for free! 2. Daily Harvest Let Daily Harvest do more so you can do less. Go to DAILYHARVEST.com/crimeweekly to get up to forty dollars off your first box. 3. PrettyLitter You don’t want people coming into your home and being hit with a nose full of “cat stink” - get PrettyLitter today!  Go to PrettyLitter.com/crimeweekly to save twenty percent on your FIRST order. 4. Thuma Create that feeling of checking in to your favorite boutique hotel suite, but at home, with The Bed, by Thuma. And now go to Thuma.co/WEEKLY to receive a twenty-five dollar credit towards your purchase of The Bed plus free shipping in the continental U.S.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we are diving into part two of the West Memphis Three series. This is, oh my God, this case, there's so much to talk about. And as I'm going through it, I'm trying to organize everything because I wanna be all over the place. And even in this episode, I sort of bounce around a bit because there's so much information.

And at times you as the listener wouldn't know why I'm giving the information. So I have to give a little bit of like insight into why I'm giving the information and then just say like, oh, but we're going to come back to this later. And it's just it's it's a crazy case. And I think that a lot of people in the comments of part one really kind of echoed that sentiment. They were like, this is one of the cases that got me into true crime to begin with. This is one of those cases that there just seems to be so much information, so much contrary information, so much battling information.

And it's like at some point you have to ask yourself what's important and what's not. And with a case like this, it just feels like that answer is like everything's important because it is, you know, in this case. And that's kind of what I've come to realize as I'm going through that that all these small little details they're very important and we haven't even really gotten into the minuscule details yet so we're gonna dive i think we should just dive right in because we have a lot to cover today is that okay with you yeah i think we're gonna give people a treat this week no need to put the time stamp and we're getting right into it we're gonna start off where we left off last episode which was you know these three eight-year-old boys were missing, but they weren't missing for long. They were found, their bodies were found eventually in Robin Hood Hills, in an area of Robin Hood Hills called the Devil's Den,

which was kind of like a more precarious area to get to. You have to cross this like pipe bridge, and a lot of the younger kids who were Stevie and Chris and Mike's age, weren't necessarily usually crossing that pipe bridge. So it's an out of the way area, very forested. And I mean, I think based on the way that these children's bodies were found, somebody was clearly trying to conceal them.

They didn't want them to be found right away. Yeah. I'm glad you said that too, because we talked a lot last week about the fact that they were hogtied, the fact that they were bound. And I had suggested that maybe it suggests it's one person who in order to control them, tied them up individually so that while they were doing whatever they were doing, the others couldn't escape. There's also, I was racking my brain. I got the notes right here. So we'll get to them as we as we go through the episode but something else is to throw out there and you may know something ahead of this where you can just interject and tell me no derek not possible but another theory i wanted to throw out there was

what about the idea that they were killed and then they were tied up afterwards because for the sake of concealment, right? Like when you said that, it just reminded me of it because if you're going to throw them in the water or whatever, you want to try to make them as small as possible. I'm trying to, again, be respectful how I say this, but also as dense as possible. They wouldn't be as buoyant as if they're laying outright, they're kind of extended. You tie them up and hope that they sink to the bottom. That was another option where maybe the hog hog tying was done could still be by one person but after the fact so we are going to talk a little bit about them being tied up and what the theory is but it is possible i do agree with you it is possible

especially if they're using sticks to keep their bodies anchored to the riverbed. Okay, so I didn't know that. Yeah, that's true. Okay, yeah. Yeah, and they're closed too, you know? So yeah, it would make sense that it would be easier with those ties that they could anchor them to the riverbed, yeah. So the tying may not suggest anything

as far as what happened beforehand. It could have just been part of the process for the concealment afterwards. And I think it's gonna, I don't know how deep we go into it as far as what happened beforehand it could have just been part of the process for the concealment afterwards and i think it's gonna i don't know how deep we go into it as far as what's known but as far as whether it's one person or multiple people i think it comes down to the mo as far as you know how they were killed but also you can go as specific as the knots right like where the knots different that were used on each boy all these things if you have one person and they tie their shoelaces a certain way they're probably going to tie those knots for all three kids the same way. If you tell me later in tonight's episode or down the road that the knots were different in nature, one was

nautical, one was more like a shoelace. Well, that's very suggestive that there was more than one person. So those are the things I'm kind of fascinated by, you know, what type of suspect or suspects we're looking at. So I think the devil's in the details. Right. So I'm sure we're going to get into all that. Yeah, we are actually going to talk about the knots. Great. But yeah, so, and I'm looking forward to getting your insight on that, but they start finding these bodies around, you know, the afternoon time. And by late afternoon, the bodies of eight-year-olds Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore had

been recovered. All three boys had been in the water, face down in the mud. All three boys had been tied up with their own shoelaces, their left wrists fastened to their left ankles, their right wrists fastened to their right ankles. So not a traditional hog tie, but they're bound in this specific way. On May 6, 1993, at approximately 3.30 p.m., Kent Hale, the Crittenden County coroner, and Ed Poe, who worked at the local funeral home, they were summoned to the swampy scene, and the three boys were officially pronounced dead at 4.10 p.m. The coroner's report states that the bodies were found in roughly two and a half feet of water and that the water temperature was about 60 degrees. All three boys were nude. The coroner claimed they were unable to check for rigor because of the way the bodies had been bound, but there was lividity present. Because the area the boys were found in was so thick and dense with

trees and foliage, there was no way to get the coroner's van to the scene, so they had to park it at the Blue Beacon truck wash, and the bodies of Stevie, Michael, and Chris were wrapped in sheets, placed in body bags, and then manually walked out of the woods and loaded into the van so they could be transported to Little Rock, Arkansas for their autopsies. Even though the water that they had been in had been about 60 degrees, it was much warmer at the surface. Obviously, it was about 80 degrees that day. And as soon as the bodies had come out of the water, they basically began to decompose very quickly. And that's when the insects descended. And this is why there would be insect activity found on the boys, because the

police had pulled them out of the water, placed them on the banks, but then waited two hours to call the coroner. So there are issues there with, you know, deterioration of the bodies, deterioration of evidence, things like that. That would make sense that you had this soaking wet, this damp flesh, you know, just exposed to the surface. So obviously mosquitoes, all those things are going to be attracted to that. Then there's probably even a little bit of a smell. All those things that would be disgusting for you and I, that is something that insects will gravitate towards.

Yeah. And I mean, the fact that they're wet too, they've been in the water for hours and hours, right? So you have some, what happens to the flesh when it's been underwater like that for hours? It's not easy to keep everything intact. Nope, well it swells up, swells up on you. And then as soon as you take them out, they kind of deflate, but the skin doesn't have its elasticity anymore, so it doesn't retract or doesn't go back to what it was before. And instead, it kind of falls off the bone, off the muscles, because the person's deceased. There's no blood pumping through it.

I think most of you can picture where it goes. I don't think we need to go into too much detail. It's not a pretty sight. While the police also found the two missing bikes that belonged to Stevie Branch and Michael Moore. The bikes were also in the water about 50 feet away from where the bodies had been found. And these bikes were taken into custody by law enforcement, but not the way that you would want them to be if you were trying to preserve evidence and the integrity of the crime scene. So the bikes were actually loaded up into the back of an animal control truck.

They were not covered with tarps to protect any evidence that was on them or to prevent whatever was in that truck, you know, from whether it be animal hair, animal waste, dirt, whatever. Nothing was put on them to preserve whatever was on them or to prevent anything that was in the environment around them from getting on them. And on top of that, it was reported that the bikes were not tested for DNA or fingerprints until a month later. And at that time, it was said that nothing was found on them. To me, this is a bad move. There's no way that those kids brought the bikes across that pipe bridge into the Devil's Den area. There's no way that those kids brought the bikes across that pipe bridge into the Devil's Den area.

There's no way they did that themselves. So somebody else carried those bikes into that dense area of foliage past the pipe bridge. Somebody else did that. And this is also what makes me believe that there was more than one person, because I just don't understand why some but one person would do this to three boys and then keep going back and forth, like go get the bike and bring it over the pipe bridge and throw that in. It did seem like there was maybe more than one person involved, but somebody else did that. That means they touched the bikes. And like, yes, the bikes

were underwater for several hours overnight at least, but you still should have been able to get something off of them. And they didn't even attempt to do it at the time. And they didn't attempt to, you know, keep the bikes covered, sealed, protected, nothing like that, even though I think there were huge pieces of evidence. No, I agree with you. Obviously, very important to the case. You don't know until you process it what you have and i think what you're saying as far as potentially you have a suspect or suspects touching it and things valid it could be true i guess with me you've obviously researched it way way more this pipe bridge and i know we had some photos in the episode physic you're saying even if under even if being forced

to do so it's physically impossible for these children to have walked their bike across. Like physically, they can't do it. It has to be an adult. Just can you paint the picture for me for listening on audio? Why can't they bring it? I know it's narrow, but if under a stressful situation, could they have been ordered or forced to do it? It's going to be tough for me to say anything is physically impossible. But yeah, I think if they had tried to do it, they would have slipped or the bike would have fallen or they would have fallen.

And I just don't think that the perpetrator is going to take that chance. I think that whatever happened to the boys happened and then this person or persons came back, got the bikes that were on the other side, the safer side of Robin Hood Hills, where the younger kids usually hung out, and brought those over the pipe bridge and then threw them in to hide them as well. I don't think that the boys did that. And there'd be no reason for them to do that. I don't think they went over there on their own. But is it physically impossible? I'll never say never. But I think I don't think that they would have both because you got two bikes. I don't think they would have both made it across. Like it's, it's a pipe. So it's not only narrow, but it's like rounded, right?

It's like rounded. So I'm looking at it right now, but there's those kind of those pillars, like, or those beams on each side of it, right? They're beams. There's still beams on, on either side, but still you're not running a bike across there. Like these are eight year old kids. They're not like super balanced or coordinated or. Now I'm looking at a photo and I'm sure you've seen it. I'm looking at a photo where you see

multiple individuals on the pipe bridge. There's two bikes on the bridge laying flat. Those are our victims bikes, correct? Yeah. I'm looking at the picture right now and yes, the bikes are on the bridge, but they're like laying sideways on the bridge. You know, they're not like being rolled across. So. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I, I, I, I'm glad we laying sideways on the bridge. Right. You know, they're not like being rolled across. So. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I, I, I, I'm glad we're saying a hundred percent.

We can't say camp because I wonder if they were being forced to go over this pipe bridge and they were too slow with the bikes. And that's why whoever was with them was like, no, just leave them there. Keep going. Leave the bikes, leave the bikes. You're not taking them. You don't need them. And maybe they dropped them right there.

Cause it looks like if they're coming over the bridge they got about three quarters of the way the bridge is pretty long there's an aerial view you can see too no those that's just where they put the that's where they put the bike when they pulled it out that's not where they found the bike they found the bike in the water they found they found both bikes in the water 50 feet from the bodies in the water yeah yeah yeah in in the water they had to pull out of the water. So that's probably where they laid them when they pulled them out of the water. So how do we even know that the bikes went across the bridge in the first place? Couldn't the offender have just taken them from the other side and just tossed them in the water? Yeah. But what I'm saying is the boys didn't go across with their bikes. Like they weren't

there in the devil's den area. And then someone came upon them. Oh yeah. And I agree with that. I think, yeah, I know I keep making the comparison and even some other people in the comments where this is Delphi. I mean, this is really Delphi. This is an offender who may, may have a familiarity with the area as well. This may help us cancel out the idea that this was some transient or some trucker who wasn't familiar because this would be someone who encounters our victims on one side of the bridge knows that by going over the other side devil's dead it's a little bit more secluded a little bit more protected less likely for people to go over

that way so they decide hey listen we're going over the bridge and you guys don't have a choice and they're able to use whatever they have in their possession where there's just multiple people there that are physically overpowering them saying hey you're going this way or one person with a weapon this might suggest that this person understood that where they originally encountered the victims wasn't the most ideal location so they ordered them to go over the bridge deeper into the woods because they knew what was on the other side which again kind of kind of goes back towards the idea that this is someone from that community. You know, I have gone back and forth on this case for years,

but never about the location of the crime. But recently, since getting back into it, I've even wondered, were these murders committed in the woods or were the kids just brought there to hide them and to hide the evidence. That is something that we will discuss when we talk about the crime scene, because I had never there was there they did a luminol test and I had never seen the results of that luminol test. I'd never heard of that luminol test. So now it's kind of new information for me. And based on that, I have to wonder, was this the scene of the crime? But we will get there.

And yeah, I'm sorry. I'm going to say that so much. I apologize too, because my head's racing and I don't know what we're going to come back to. So it's one of those things where when I feel something or think of something, it's like, oh, I got to ask, I got to know. But I feel like that's kind of cleared up the whole bike thing for me a little bit. They also kind of processed the crime scene to see if they could find evidence and things like that. And after some searching, the police recovered pretty much all articles of the boy's clothing besides two pairs of underwear and some socks. So out of six sneakers, only one still had its laces.

And Michael Moore had actually been last seen wearing blue pants, his blue Boy Scouts of America shirt, tennis shoes, and an orange and blue Boy Scouts cap. His Boy Scouts shirt was found in the creek, pinned down with sticks, as were his Super Mario Brothers underwear. His cap was also found, as were his pants, but the pants were buckled and turned inside out. So this is something also that is very odd about this scene. And inside the pants was a wallet with a family picture. You remember the ones our parents used to force us to get dressed up for and then like go to JCPenney's photo studio and pose for, and it was always stiff and awkward, but that was a picture that was in his wallet. Now, Stevie's white t-shirt and blue jeans were also found, as were Chris Byers' jeans and long-sleeved white shirt. Like I said, something the police found odd about the

clothing was that it looked like all three pairs of pants were buckled and fastened, but also turned inside out. Now, this could be because of a few reasons. Maybe the pants were buckled and fastened, but also turned inside out. Now, this could be because of a few reasons. Maybe the pants were removed for the boys. Somebody removed the pants really quickly without any care or without taking the time to unbutton them, or the boys removed their own pants quickly and without a ton of care to take time and unbuckle them, because that is how young children typically remove their clothes inside out, and then they don't put them right side out before putting them in the hamper. But we don't really know why the pants looked like that. Was it because the offender had ripped them off the boys, leaving them inside out? Or was it because the offender told the boys

to remove their clothes and they did it quickly like that either way this clearly wasn't something that stevie michael and chris decided to do on their own without being prompted to do yeah i'm gonna leave it at that because it's it's actually i don't even want to go there go get emotional over it but i think these little boys were being forced and in a sense a rush they were taking off their pants or yeah i'm good i'm good on going too deep with that one exactly exactly it's their eight like it's very hard to uh to understand the fear that they were experiencing at that point so and you know some people believe that there was a few articles of clothing missing like the socks and the two pair of underwears

because that meant the murders were committed at a different location and then the bodies and the two pair of underwears because that meant the murders were committed at a different location. And then the bodies of the boys were simply brought to the isolated area of Robin Hood Hills to be hidden. And as we said at the top of the episode, without a doubt, someone wanted those boys' bodies hidden. Someone wanted to make sure they weren't found. Why else would they have put all the evidence underwater and then use sticks to make sure everything stayed under the water? The clothes, the bikes, the bodies, everything under the water. And it clearly was an effective tactic because no one who had gone through the woods the night before had found the boys.

And, you know, there was detailed law enforcement organized searches that following morning in the light of day. And they also missed the crime scene now remember it was steve jones crittenden county assistant juvenile parole officer who had not given up when so many others had abandoned robin hood hills to look elsewhere he'd stayed and he kept looking and because of his perseverance he spotted the floating tennis shoe that nobody else had seen apparently and this was the tennis shoe that nobody else had seen apparently. And this was the tennis shoe that indicated where the crime scene was. Now, many people wonder, how did Steve Jones see this tennis shoe when no one else saw it? How was Steve Jones able to crack the case when trained police officers and dozens and dozens of searchers had missed that tennis shoe? And it is speculated that maybe

Steve Jones got some inside information, which led him to the exact spot where the bodies of Stevie, Michael, and Chris could be found. But like I said, we'll talk about that in more detail later. The thing is, Steve Jones was a parole officer, a juvenile parole officer. It seemed like he already had in his mind the person or people who had committed this crime. And I guess the theory is that these parole officers really just had an ax to grind with Damien Echols and his friends. And they were certain that Damien was doing the satanic witchcraft and doing sacrifices and stuff. They were absolutely certain of it. And so the theory goes that they committed this crime steve jones and jerry driver and a bunch of other you know i guess i don't know if i would say a bunch of other but it's some conspiracy they committed this crime so that they could set up damian eccles and his friends and so when nobody found the bodies on their own steve jones had to kind of like come in and move it along and be like, oh, I found something, you know, and bring everyone to the crime scene. That is how the theory goes. And it may not seem like reliable or valid. And you might to like Satanism and witchcraft and thinking the devil was in West Memphis, they were bananas about it to a level I've never seen in real life before. So it's not like beyond the realm of possibility. I'll just say that it's not. I mean, I know where we stand as of today, as far as those individuals you just mentioned, and they're free right now.

So can't avoid that for however many parts we're doing it. So it would be foolish for me not to acknowledge that. There might be more to this story where some people had it out for them. You had mentioned last episode that they had said it was them before they had any evidence to connect them. So to think that there could be something here, of course, absolutely possible. I'd have to know more before I go out on a limb and say, yeah, I think there's definitely, that's what happened here. But I think it's important to note it because it could be part of the equation where when everyone else decided to go one way, where this individual, Steve Jones, decided to stick around.

And you have to ask yourself, did he have that much of an instinct that it was there or was there something more to the story yeah because he's not even a police officer right like he's not law enforcement he's just like there as a volunteer it's not like he's got all this training and he's like true detective up in here you know i i will say the last time the last place they're seen is going into the woods so i would i would want to clear that area with 100 certainty before moving on to the next area. But the police had thought they'd done that, right? The police were even like, okay, we're moving on. We've cleared this. We were like going arm in arm. Cause I mean, I think we can say there's a possibility that someone who knew about it planted something in there to, to, to make, to bring the scene back to that, to bring them back

to that. But then you would ask yourself, why would they go through so much trouble to hide the bodies and then be disappointed if the bodies weren't found by police? You know what I'm trying to say? So I thought about that, yeah. You know what I mean? Why not just leave them right there? Because one, you don't want them found right away. Like they didn't want them found the night they went missing.

Right. Okay, that would defeat the whole purpose. And also two two putting them in the water does like we've said a million times compromise any physical evidence that's on them you have like a two-pronged sort of you know reason here like you don't want these kids bodies found the night that they go missing you want there to be a big thing and you want there to be a big search like if you were trying to set someone up, that's what you would want. And you wouldn't technically want them to be found that night because then maybe the police go right to the suspects that night and they find out they have an alibi. Whereas if more time passes, there's a bigger window and you don't know exactly when these kids died. Right. You don't know. It could have been one o'clock in the morning. It could have been 7 p.m. You don't know. But the longer that they're gone, the longer you can't find them, the bigger that window of potential time that the crime could have happened is. And that gives it

gives you a lot more wiggle room if you're trying to frame someone, because now they've got to account for their time, that whole window, not just, you know, from 6 to 7 p.m. Yeah, I buy it. Definitely in the realm of possibility. Can't say it isn't. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Okay, let's talk about the autopsies. Stevie Branch's autopsy report says that his right hand was bound to his right ankle with a black shoelace and his right hand was bound to his right ankle with a black shoelace and his left hand was bound to his left ankle with a white shoelace. Here were his injuries starting from his head and face and moving down. Stevie's right ear showed multiple contusions and abrasions and scattered abrasions were located over his right eye with a half inch contusion

over his right eyelid and eyebrow and a two-inch scratch under his right eye. There were multiple scratches on his right jaw area as well as what the ME referred to as bell-shaped abrasions. There was a bell-shaped abrasion on his right jaw and then another one extending above and below his left eyebrow, and his scalp showed multiple superficial cuts and abrasions with his entire left ear contused with overlying, finely linear abrasions. In fact, the entire left side of Stevie's face, including the ear area, showed multiple confluent red abrasions with multiple gouging-type irregular cutting wounds and overlying abrasions, with many of the wounds ending in his mouth, which was also bleeding inside. His mouth and his gums were bleeding. Stevie's head and

skull showed multiple abrasions and fractures, and a subarachnoid hemorrhage was found in his right frontal lobe. There were multiple scattered abrasions on Stevie's chest and multiple scratches and contusions on his lower limbs, including a one inch yellow scratch on his thigh and a patterned grid-like impression with evidence of binding abrasions and contusions that were yellow and tan with abraded margins. So this means that on his wrists and his ankles where he had the shoelaces, it was sort of like yellow underneath, and then above that and below, it was red and like purple at times. And that's from being bound. Now, as far as Stevie's genitals, the autopsy report stated that the mid shaft of the penis, including the glands, was red and purple

with fine superficial scratches. This is something that we'll see on one of the other victims, but much worse. Stevie's cause of death was given as being due to multiple injuries and drowning because there was water found in his lungs and stomach. Stevie's best friend, Michael Moore, seemed to have also been viciously beaten before his death. In fact, he had so many contusions, abrasions, and fractures throughout his face, head, and body that I can't even list them all. Just, you know, what happened to Stevie? But basically worse. Michael had died from multiple injuries as well as drowning. But

if you ask me, out of all three, Christopher Byers had it the worst. He'd been beaten severely. There was multiple bite wounds found inside his mouth. Most likely they were self- the worst. He'd been beaten severely. There was multiple bite wounds found inside his mouth. Most likely they were self-inflicted. He had multiple fractures at the base of his skull, including a left cranial three and a half inch radiating fracture, as well as a left posterior medial cranial quarter of an inch punched out fracture. But the most shocking injury on Chris Byers was to his genitals. According to the Emmy's report, quote, side of penis, scrotal sac, and testes missing with gaping defect of two and three quarters time one and a half inch. Shaft of penis present. Gaping defect surrounded by multiple and extensive irregular punctuating gouging type injuries, end quote.

So basically like a portion of his penis had been cut off, which is crazy. It's crazy to think about that. And like they said, gouging type injuries, it kind of looked like a serrated blade of some kind had been used. Now, that was the original thought. That was what the ME said. That was what they posed during these trials. But later on, a new theory about how this had happened to Chris Byers was put forth. And we will talk about that later. i see us although it's more aggressive as you went through the different victims it does seem like there's some consistency as far as the injuries as far as the modus operandi as far as what they did with the genitals so at this point just you know going back to our theory of one person or multiple people i i would lean slightly towards just one person but i feel like there's more to talk about.

So I'll just, I'll refrain from going any further, but clearly this is a sick individual. This isn't something that we're looking at where if it were some teen boys, that there was a fight that got out of hand and escalated beyond what they thought. And they were just trying to get away from the scene. This person had some form of gratification in this. They took their time with it. There was something they were getting out of it and maybe premeditated, maybe just an opportunity where this sick individual had been looking for this window to do something like this, saw these boys

alone and just couldn't resist. I don't think there's any way that if it, whether it's one person or multiple people, they would have known that these boys were going to be at the woods at this time. So obviously they were victims of opportunity. The real question is, are we talking multiple suspects or one? Because I do think that'll help us figure out who these individuals are or who this individual is if we can start to narrow that down that pool. Yeah. And there was genital mutilation to Stevie and Chris, but not Michael Moore. Right. And that could be an anomaly. It could mean there was someone else, or it could just mean that the offender didn't go that route in that particular one for whatever

reason. So it's one of those situations where you could have two offenders where you have Stevie being assaulted by one offender and then Michael and Christopher being assaulted by the other. Yeah. But unlike his friends, Stevie and Michael, Chris Byers had not drowned, at least from what we can tell. He had no water in his lungs or in his stomach. It looks as if he had vomited, defecated on himself, and died as a result of blood loss from his multiple injuries. Chris Byers was also the only one of the three who had scars from prior injuries.

And when Stevie and Michael had wounds on their hands, they both had wounds on their hands that are consistent with defensive wounds. Christopher did not. Also for both Stevie and Michael, there were evidence of binding abrasions and contusions that we talked about a little briefly. Stevie had these abrasions

on his ankles. They were yellow and tan, while the abrasions on his wrists were surrounded by red contusions. Michael's wrists and ankles also showed binding abrasions with red-purple contusions above and below, but Chris Beyer's binding contusions were a bit different, where Stevie and Michael had binding contusions around their binding abrasions on each limb, ankles and wrists. Chris only had a faint contusion on his left wrist and ankle, and they were not accompanied by surrounding contusions. And this could suggest that Stevie and Michael were tied up with shoelaces while they were still alive, and Chris was not tied up on his left side until after he was like they were they were badly beaten if there's only one person there i still think there would have to have been some form of restraint to to carry that out there's no gunshot wounds there might

be some signs of a knife being used but they were beaten to death so yeah i mean well beaten close to death because as you mentioned and then put in the water alive yeah put in the water but barely alive uh and so that would suggest at that point that they were they were tied up for the sake of not being found right they were tied up so that they would sink to the bottom that they could be held in a specific area with the sticks and all these different things so absolutely horrific to think about either way when you slice it i can kind of see where you're going with this I I don't know these specifics, but it sounds to me like you're laying out and I a theory at least that's probably prevalent within this community that maybe Chris had more of a connection to the offender or offenders and That's why whatever happened to him happened differently

And also you had mentioned something about previous injuries, which could suggest that Chris May had known this offender and this wasn't the first time he was assaulted by them. So I see where you're going with it and I'm looking forward to exploring it. So, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it's a prevalent theory in the community. There's so many theories, but I think we can both agree that with Chris Byers, it seemed to be different. And as we were talking just now, something kind of like came to me and I started jotting it down. What if this is what happened? What if, because some people say Chris had it worse because he was targeted, that the people were there, the people or person were there for Chris Byers and Michael and Stevie just happened to be in the wrong place, wrong time, and they were collateral damage.

But what if that's not the case? And what if this just was an offender who was taking the opportunity that he had, a crime of opportunity? He stumbles upon these three little boys. He happens to be a sick pervert pedophile, and he wants to make the most out of his time. What if Chris was beaten first? So what if Stevie and Michael were tied up? And that's why they have these abrasions and these contusions. And Chris Byers was the first one to get like basically beaten and attacked. And that's why he had these terrible, horrible injuries because the person had all this energy and while stevie and michael are over there waiting chris byers is getting you know basically he's getting beat to

death and then by the time the person's done with chris he's not going anywhere so he barely you know has to tie him up and as the person or persons moves on to mich and Stevie, Chris Byers, he bleeds out from his injuries. And that's why he has no water in his lungs, because by the time those three boys went in, Chris, being the first victim, had already passed away. And so therefore, when he goes in the water, he's not alive. Whereas the other two, who were the second and third victims, were still, you know, holding on or hanging on to life when they went in the water. I think it's possible. Let me throw one more at you. Okay. Cause we talked about the fact that the two victims other than Chris had defensive wounds. So what if instead of Chris being first, he was last. And that is why the offender was able to go slower

and take more time with him. Soris is last he beats him severely or whoever they beat him severely because he's the last one the two other victims are being tied up after after there's some defense there they're tied up they're put to the side the offender no longer needs to rush because the two other people who could flee the area are are taken care of he takes his time with christ. And then when he's finished with Christopher, he goes back to the first two, puts them in the water. By the time he gets back to Christopher, who's still in the woods, he expires from his injuries before we even place him in the water. I think both scenarios are possible. I think the only thing

that makes me lean towards the idea that maybe Chris was last was the fact that maybe there's a point where all three of them are not bound and that's why you have defensive wounds on the first two because they're fighting back by the time it gets to Chris maybe he knocks Chris out with the first shot you know something there's so many well you can i can sit here so because remember he's got all these bite marks inside of his mouth and i it feels like that's something that happens when you're aware and conscious and you're being beat. Yeah. No, I mean, I think both scenarios have some validity to them where they could be true, but I was leaning towards him being last, and that's why the offender took his time with him. It could be deeper than that. It could be because he knew them. But the fact that he didn't have any defensive wounds may suggest that he was last he could have been bound up as well um before the before the first two were assaulted uh and that's why there's no defensive wounds and then he was able to take his time with him because the other two were rendered you know unconscious near death already by the

time he went to christopher no matter which way you slice it it's just this is horrific this might be the worst case that we've discussed since we started crime weekly, as far as the details and the picture that I'm getting, it's, it's, it's really, really difficult because there's, there's really no sugarcoating it. What happened to these three little boys? I will say one thing from a outside perspective, and this may bother some people. I don't really care. I am someone who is not super in depth in the, in the true crime community that may offend some people. Cause I see some comments where like, how don't you know about all these cases? I was working my own cases that you guys don't know about the more obscure cases. I wasn't working these cases. So I,

in my free time, wasn't researching or studying these more high profile cases because they had nothing to do with me. But I can tell you, I've obviously heard of this case. And to be really honest with you, I'm shocked by what I'm hearing about these victims, because frankly, I've heard more about the people who were convicted and then later let out, which is fine, because I do not think anybody should be in prison for a crime they didn't commit. But man, I really feel like there should be more out there about these kids because whoever did this, I mean, these kids, I mean, they suffered. This was not something that was quick at all. And that's just terrible to think about. Yeah, they did.

I mean, it's pretty common, right, that these victims get lost in the shuffle. Yeah. When it's a big high profile case like this, it always happens. I mean, even like Kaylee Anthony, you know, everyone was talking about Casey. Yeah, that's true.

Not that anybody forgot about Kaylee, but I mean, no one was really talking about her, remembering her. Yeah. Yeah. At least we, I mean,

with Kaylee, I feel I'm on the outside looking and I'm not the sample that you should be taking from the true crime community. Cause I'm not someone who does listen to these podcasts or YouTube channels a lot. So maybe I'm just misinformed. But what I'm hearing about these little boys, maybe there's a reason. Maybe there's a reason people aren't covering it this in depth. But I think it's important. We're covering it for a specific reason. This is not something that just happened. This wasn't a random act of violence because you could think maybe teen boys in the woods, a fight ensues, someone gets hurt. They realize there's no other way to go. And this was something where the boys got injured in a fight and the older boys felt like there was no other choice. No, we're talking about a sick fuck who did what he did or did what they did and and i hate to say this but it probably enjoyed it to a certain degree which is just makes it 10 times worse and i mean that's why i said like

the beginning of the the series like it's hard to understand what what anybody what what reason anyone would have to do this to three little boys no you know like it's never never gets easier to hear it's hard to think that it would be just a you know a random act of violence because it does seem personal it seems like there's some hatred there's some resentment there's anger there so on one hand you're like oh yeah it could just be a random person who came across them and they're sick they're a But like there's some, you got to be pretty, you have to be really completely a psychopath or have an ax to grind with these kids to have that anger. And then, you know, basically they were tortured. Like they were beaten to death.

Yeah, like you said. And you just don't understand how that could happen. Yep. And why. And in the middle of the, I i mean we're not talking in the middle of the night i mean this happens relatively when people are still up and they're in the woods this person or these people had to have some type of knowledge or familiarity with that area to know they could go back there and then i'm even asking myself more questions like i know they're in the woods and i know I haven't been there So maybe it's just not understanding the geography of it

But three boys whether there's one offender or multiple offenders maybe out of fear they don't but you would think there'd be some screaming some yelling Doesn't I don't know if they were gagged. It doesn't appear that they were gagged. So Even if they didn't want to voluntarily just from the fear, the sheer pain of this, I guess if they were far enough away from, from any type of community, from any type of civilization, you wouldn't hear it even if, even if they did, but it just seems like whoever did this brought them to this specific

location because they had absolutely been there before. Yes. I don't, I think that it might be maybe not understand geography, but from the pictures and like from the aerial view too, it looks like that apartment complex is like right there. So you, and it's May, so people are going to seems like someone felt comfortable that they had time to do what they did to tie them up. You know, they clearly weren't tying themselves up behind their backs. No. So someone had to do that.

And it was either one person or multiple people. I don't believe they tied up each other. I don't think that's the case. So, yeah, this is a head scratcher for sure. And it doesn't get any easier. And that's why i kind of i go back and forth like okay they had water in their lungs so then did the crime take place there but like you said you think they'd be yelling and somebody would hear so were they just brought there when they were on like the brink of death or unconscious and that's when they were put in the water like if is neither of those things true it's very hard to understand especially i mean we've talked about this before outside crime scenes are almost impossible to

process you know with the elements and animals and wildlife and you you know, it's going to rain and it's dirt. It's not like hard surfaces, like a floor where you can see blood, blood is soaking into the ground, things like that. It just makes it very difficult to even have an understanding of what happened. I personally, my gut tells me it was there. I mean, common sense tells you that they were last seen going into the area where they were eventually found. The offender or offenders would have to take them out of there and bring them back. But I mean, nothing's impossible. That's based on eyewitness testimony that most people don't even believe to be legitimate.

It was from the mom though, right? The mom saw them driving towards that area. So what? Driving down the road in that direction. But they could have just cut over left and gone down another road behind the apartments. We don't know that they were going to the woods. Yeah, no, I hear you. We don't see them going in the woods. You would think if this wasn't premeditated in the sense that these offenders knew they were going to be there, which there's no way they could have, they must have been down that way as well.

So I would think if they encounter their offenders, even if it's on the outskirts of the woods, most likely they continued into the woods where they wouldn't be seen or heard as opposed to going somewhere else. I'll also say the transportation of these three young boys, if it didn't happen there, good luck with that. I mean, I guess if you have a vehicle or something like that, but now you've got to transport the bikes as well, because as you mentioned, the bikes are found in the other side of the bridge. So they have to bring the bikes with them as well. It just seems like it would be a lot harder to carry that out. Then just, you know, finding them on the edge of the woods or finding them in the woods and just carrying out whatever they did right at that location, but deeper in there where they wouldn't be seen or hurt.

Or grabbing them at any point and bringing them into the woods yeah yeah had to be in that vicinity and that makes me wonder who who would have who would be in that area at that time other other kids truckers things like that but again if it's a trucker and even though they might know the location and they're passing through there that they don't know devil's den i don't think they wouldn't know that unless they're from the area well devil's den was right behind the blue beacon truck wash so they they would all they'd have like let's say they like i said they have to pee they're waiting for the truck to be washed they walk a little bit into the woods if they're coming through there all the time maybe they're looking for a quiet place to have a cigarette how far is devil's den away from the back so the back of this lot because you know better than me the back of this lot

wherever this trucker stop is how far are we talking ballpark from devil's den where the bodies were found to the, because if I'm going to, I've done it. Sorry, guys, pull over on the side of the highway or whatever, where you have to pee. And I might go in five feet, 10 feet at that. And for a couple of reasons, I don't want to get bit by anything. I don't want to trip and fall and not come up, uh, snakes, all that stuff. I'm going, I'm going right to the rear, just to the edge where you can't see me anymore. And that's it. So how far would you, I know it's a guess, man, putting you on the spot here, but how far are we talking? Because if I'm going into just pee and it's behind at a truck stop, which probably has a bathroom. I'm not going too far into the

woods. There's really no reason for it if you're just peeing. So I wonder if it's even more than 50 feet away, I don't think you would know down there as a spot you could go and carry out something like this. I think it would be someone who had been to that area, drinking, camping, fishing, something to say, I've been here numerous times and you very rarely encounter other people. This would be a spot where if I wanted to get away and not be found for a little bit, this is where I would go. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like I have to go there. I have to go there and walk through these woods. Is it like a woods where you'd be going camping? Or is it like a woods where it's like a woods where like you you'd be going camping or is it like a

woods where it's like a little slice of kind of like trees and then on either side there's civilization like right how how immense is it i i need to see that for myself but we're going to talk about the shoelaces and the bindings because there was an odd way that they were tied you know first of all as we talked, like both of these boys, I think it was only Michael Moore who was tied with two black shoelaces and Chris and Stevie had one black shoelace, one white shoelace. So once again, they're not even being tied with their own shoelaces. It's kind of just like all the shoelaces are getting removed from the shoes and then used basically however they need to be, except for that one shoe that didn't have the shoelaces

removed. So then it's also like, well, what happened there? Where did that extra shoelace come from? Or was Michael Moore, who was tied up with two black shoelaces, was that the same shoelace cut in half and used to tie him up?, you've got one extra shoe that still has the shoelaces in it, so you're missing a binding there. But besides that, Michael Moore's left wrist and left ankle were tied using a square knot. His right wrist was tied with three half hitches, which is a different kind of knot, and his right ankle was tied using four half hitches. Now Stevie's left wrist was tied with three half hitches. His left ankle was tied with three half hitches

and two loops around the leg while his right wrist was tied using a half hitch with a figure eight and his right ankle was tied with three half hitches and then an extra loop around his leg. Chris Byer's bindings were all tied with the same knots, two half hitches. Because remember, just he's tied up on one side. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

I suppose these are very basic knots, the half hitches and the square knot. They're very basic, easy knots like anybody would know them. It's not like military grade, but they are different, I guess. You know they there are different knots being used yeah there you go so could be someone who's just not consistent with their knots but i would i would lean towards multiple people there right like i would lean towards the idea that there's at least two people present at that point they're using i know with me even if it's something i'm doing in my backyard, I usually use the same system to tie those knots unless it has to be really secure.

So as I said, episode one, and I just said at the beginning of this one, that to me on the surface may suggest that there's more than one person, which I think as we're going through this, we've never said that, oh, that's not possible. We're entertaining both, but I do think that's more suggestive of more than one brain there, right? More than one person who has a different process as far as tying knots. Real quick too, I wanted to, we don't have to keep going back to it, but there is a couple of drawings online that you guys can easily find. I'm looking at Wikipedia right now, and it's kind of like an illustration of the layout where you can see the truck stop.

You can see the pipe bridge. You can see where the boys were located. You can see the pipe bridge. You can see where the boys were located. You can see the wooded area. There's no scale on this, but you can see I-40. I can tell you whether you're driving down I-40 or you're at the truck stop, it's a little ways off. It's a little ways off. And it's to the point where I think where the bikes were found or where they were dropped is even further away. So how would, how would this random person who may just pass by here once or twice a week on their route know about this? Yeah, it could be dumb luck. They could be in there, see the boys

and just follow because they heard them inside there. Just follow them down there and go, Oh, what's going on over here. And maybe the boys brought the offender to the area by him hearing them or them hearing them. But that would be suggestive. Probably one person, a trucker, a single person where now we're talking about the idea that there's multiple people, which to me would, would kind of suggest that maybe it wasn't just a trucker driving by at the normal truck truck stop. It's more likely someone or a group of people who are familiar with that area. Who've been down there drinking before whatever partying before. So take a look at the map. It's more likely someone or a group of people who are familiar with that area, who've been down there drinking before, whatever, partying before. So take a look at the map. It's a pretty good illustration. Like I said, not the scale, but it gives you a pretty good idea. You

can see where the three boys were found and it's a ways off from the truck stop and from the road. So when the bodies were found and there was no longer a mystery about what happened to the missing children, lead detective Gary Gitchell emerged from the woods to address the large group of citizens who had gathered at the edge of the police blockade. And if you watch the Paradise Lost documentary, one of the most impactful scenes is when the parents are told what the police have found deep in the woods. Terry Hobbs is the first notified. He is Stevie's stepfather and he crumples to the ground. He begins to cry. Stevie's mother, Pam Hobbs, she also begins sobbing hysterically,

and then she evidently faints. Gary Gitchell was also supporting a visibly distressed John Mark Byers, who was quickly talking to a reporter right after he's notified about what they found in the woods, and he told the reporter that he had just been out looking in those same woods. He said he'd been within 15 feet of where the boys had been found, and he hadn't seen them. John Mark Byers did give some information to the reporters that he shouldn't have, though. He told them about some specific injuries on the boys that the police had, you know, kind of confided in him. But to lead detective Gary Gitchell's credit, he personally kept very quiet on the details when he spoke to reporters. Later that evening, however, the Memphis Commercial Appeal used their newsroom scanner to listen in on the Arkansas State Police broadcast, and they got some details from there,

and those details made it to the front page the next morning. But the commercial appeal hadn't gotten everything right, and it reported inaccurate details that would only fan the flames of the small-town gossip network that had already been going strong before the boys were even located. The paper said that all three boys had been sexually mutilated, and when other reporters asked Gary Gitchell to comment on this fact, he refused to, which also sort of fanned the flames. But he did confirm that all three boys had been bound hand to foot. Maybe Gary Gitchell was mad that the Arkansas State Police had led sensitive information slip on their scanner, or maybe it was a pride thing. But within hours of the boys being found, the governor of Arkansas was offering the West Memphis Police Department the help of the state

police, who obviously had more manpower and resources, and Gitchell said no. Now, is this like a John Bonnet Ramsey situation where the police, the local police there were like, we can handle this ourselves, even though they couldn't. That may be, but it also is possible that the pre-existing tensions between the state police and the West Memphis and the local police made a working relationship between the two difficult, because just four months before these horrendous murders, the state police had been investigating officers from the West Memphis police,

as well as the Crittenden County Sheriff's Office. And in May of 1993, when these three boys went missing and were found murdered, that investigation was still ongoing. So we're going to take a quick break and I'm going to come back and tell you about that. All right, we're back. We're going to talk about why the state police were investigating the local police in West Memphis, Arkansas. And it all kind of started on January 15th, 1993. This was, like I said, just five months before these three boys went missing and were murdered.

A deputy, Clark White, who was an undercover member of the Crittenden County Drug Task Force, was found dead in his home from an apparent overdose. During an investigation, a package of liquid poison was found in White's kitchen, and an, Tennessee found White's black Pontiac Firebird that was registered to the sheriff's office. And shortly after Clark White had been seen alive for the last time, it was reported that his car had been seen, but two strange men were driving it and White was not in the vehicle. Now, these two suspects were quickly detained and they told police that Deputy White had been selling and pawning various items in order to fuel his drug habit, including his own service revolver, as well as evidence seized in drug arrests and various other guns. And he'd also offered his car to a drug dealer as collateral for $300 worth of crack. So obviously, he got taken out by these drug dealers, and state police officers began to look through Deputy White's files after his death, and they found out that he hadn't been the only narcotics officer who'd been corrupt.

They found that guns, which had been seized during drug arrests, were missing from evidence, and money, as well as drugs that had been seized, also appeared to be missing. And according to the book Devil's Knot, quote, during the 10 weeks immediately preceding the triple murder in May, 14 employees of the county drug task force, including four detectives from the West Memphis Police Department, were questioned by state police. Several officers, including three from the West Memphis Police Department, admitted to having taken guns from the evidence locker. One deputy told investigators that it had become common practice for members of the drug task force to help themselves to guns that were reported to the courts as having been destroyed, end quote. Now, one of these police officers who admitted to wrongdoing was a Lieutenant James Sudbury, a West Memphis narcotics officer who

had also become very involved in the investigation of the West Memphis Three. By the time Stevie, Chris, and Mike were found dead, Sudbury had already had the finger pointed at him by other members of the task force, and he had also admitted to having taken personal possession of at least four weapons that had been seized as evidence. Surprisingly, the extent of this corruption was kept from the public. I say surprisingly, ironically. I don't mean surprisingly. The extent of this corruption was definitely concealed from the public,

and the DA, Brent Davis, he, I guess, decided not to charge Sudbury or any of the others, and he kind of just let it go. Now, there is another connection to the Crinton County Drug Task Force, and that connection is in the form of John Mark Byers, the stepfather of Christopher Byers. Now, John Mark Byers seemed to be tight with the police in West Memphis. They were always known to be seen in his backyard, drinking beer, enjoying some barbecue. And it turns out that John Mark Byers was also a confidential informant for the drug task force, as well as Chris Byers' mother,

Melissa Byers, also ended up being a CI for the drug task force. And we're going to talk more about that later. But from what I could tell, the Byers' home was kind of like the place to be. There was also some issues between the Byers and the Moores. So issues between Chris Byers' family and Michael Moores' family, because remember, they live right across the street from each other. So it seemed like when the Byers first arrived to the neighborhood or when the Moores first moved in, either way, when one of the families joined the other family in the neighborhood, they were like real tight and they were always hanging out together.

And the Moores were always over at the By like real tight and they were always hanging out together. And the Moors were always over at the buyer's house and they were there for the backyard barbecues and they were drinking beer and they were friendly. And then something happened and they had like a falling out. And then after that, the Moors would always get pissed off when the buyers had their barbecues because I guess people would like park on the Moors lawn and, you know, they were probably salty about not being invited anymore. And so they would complain about it. But either way, something happened between the Moore family and the Byers family. But John Mark Byers was known to like be very friendly with law enforcement in West Memphis. And that's probably because there's a little bit of a criminal element to him. And I guess he gravitated towards like the CI position.

But as a result, he kind of became tight with with a lot of these police officers. And you can see it in the pictures where Gary Gitchell is like comforting John Mark Byers. Like they look friendly. They look like they they know each other well. And like these are two men that that are comfortable with each other. Yeah, that happens. I won't especially narcotics i think we've talked about this before where we have confidential informants that work for us and you develop a rapport with them like a genuine relationship because you're with them for a lot of hours sometimes in a car for multiple multiple days trying to carry out a buy so you do become friends to a certain degree. I don't know if I would ever cover for them on something

because it was more of like they're doing something for me. It was more transactional, the relationship. I wasn't having beers with them, but that's just me speaking personally. Down there, obviously, it's a little different where they're befriending the guys they're also working with. It's a little crazy.

I don't even know if that would be against policy. Because it's a small town. Yeah, exactly. So everyone knows everyone, you know. Yeah, it's a little different. It's different, yeah. Yeah. Now, is it common for police officers or undercover officers on the Narcotics Task Force to be, like, taking things out of evidence?

Yeah, I mean, you're just joking, right? No. Like, is that, like, a very common thing? Like, would that, does it not surprise you? Yeah, no, you're just joking, right? No. Like, is that like a very, like, is that a very common thing? Like, would that, does it not surprise you? Yeah. No, you can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that, right?

No. No. Unless, and the only time you're doing that is if you're taking it for court purposes where you're checking it out to bring it to trial for evidentiary reasons or destruction reasons. We would, all the firearms that we would seize throughout the year once the cases were adjudicated there's a process for destroying those firearms where it has to be documented you remove them from the evidence locker you

have multiple detectives there to verify that no firearms are leaving that area with someone and then there's a video taking of of the guns being destroyed so yeah there's a very strict process when it comes to firearms drugs anything's like that that are coming out of the evidence room so yeah no we weren't taking firearms out of the evidence lockers we you lose your job and like trading them yeah that's drugs it's kind of a crime it's kind of a crime you know might be not in west memphis i mean it would be a charge mostly i mean it's you're essentially it's a you know it's a larceny. It's a felony.

Not in West Memphis, though. In West Memphis, they're just like, eh, we're not going to talk about that anymore. Let's go to the buyer's house and have a beer together. Yeah, that wouldn't fly up here. So after finding the bodies and starting the investigation, the first thing detectives did was go door to door in that immediate neighborhood, which happened to be the Robin Hood Hillswood. 11 residences were marked as being because Gary Glitchell had written at the bottom of the survey that these officers should make sure all the information was written down, which just didn't end up happening. They had zero surveys filled out for eight of the 14 streets, and they only completed 60 surveys in total, 60 surveys out

of 528 residences. Law enforcement also requisitioned a list of customers who had washed their vehicles at the Blue Beacon truck wash that day and the previous day, and they began looking into vans when some residents claimed they'd seen an unfamiliar white van driving around the area. Now, there was also multiple eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen or heard things that could be connected to these three boys on May 5th, the day that they went missing or the day they were last seen. Deborah O. Tinger lived at 1309 Goodwin Avenue, and she claimed that she saw all three boys just before 6 p.m., and she knew that it was just before 6 p.m. because she and her family were leaving their house to go to dinner at her mother's house.

Her mother was Mae Burschers, and Mae lived at 506 Balfour, and they had to be there by 6 p.m. So Deborah said that the boys were going through her yard. One of them, she said one of them was on the bike, and the other two were walking. And she said they passed a tree she had planted, and she had just planted this tree, and she basically was like, hey, can you like get off my lawn? Like, could you walk on the sidewalk? And she said at that point, she saw that they were heading in the direction of Robin Hood Hills. Now, we know that Michael Moore's mother, Dana Moore, saw all three boys together around 6 p.m. once again, as you mentioned earlier, heading in the direction of Robin Hood Hills. And another resident, 20-year-old Brian Woody, he claimed that he saw the three boys around 6.30 p.m. as he was driving to his parents' house from work. He said that the kids' backs were

to him the whole time, but he saw them walking into Robin Hood Hills and he noticed them because one of the boys had spiky blonde hair, which reminded him of his two-year-old son who also had spiky blonde hair. So for a long time, this sighting from Brian Woody was generally considered to be the last of the boys alive. And apparently this was supposed to be proof that they had willingly gone into the woods, that all these different theories we were talking about, were they coerced to go into the woods? Were they brought there? Were they already unconscious when they were there? Those were all a moot point because Brian Woody saw them walking into the woods at 6.30. Personally, I don't know if any of these sightings are legitimate. There's no possible way all of them could be. And I just, I don't think that really any of them are.

Why couldn't they all possibly be true? Because first of all, like this Brian Woody guy, he admitted, he was like, oh yeah, I was going like 60 miles an hour. Like, and you're talking about like residential roads. And he said he never even saw the kids, their back was to him. And I just don't, I don't believe him.

I don't believe him. Okay. So you just don't, but it's possible though, right? I mean, it's, we could say it could be true because you have Dana who allegedly saw the boys going in the direction of the woods around 6 PM. Maybe, maybe it was a couple of minutes before, maybe a couple minutes after really doesn't, doesn't matter too, too much. Then you have this other resident saying she saw the kids around 6 p.m., still going in that same direction. And then about a half hour later, now they're on foot,

according to Woody, and they're going into the woods. So I get what you're saying. There's some variables there that have to make you question whether or not it was even the boys that he saw, or was it even on the right day, right? I mean, there's all that that comes into play. But I guess technically, if we knew for a fact that they were all telling the truth and they were all spot on, you could have a period where first they're seen at maybe 5.55, then maybe they're seen at 6.05, 6.10, and then they're seen around 6 26 25 going into the woods and now you have this path that they went from the time they were seen by mom to the time they're

seen by brian woody and if if it's right then it is what we could be thinking it's one of the theories where they literally walked into the woods and encountered their offender they weren't forced in there they walked into basically what would later be a trap and encountered their offender they weren't forced in there they walked into basically what would later be a trap even though the offender didn't know they were coming there's no way that they could have yeah i mean when you look at all of these i because i'm not even done like when you look at all of them like cumulatively you just understand that some of them some of them are wrong some of them are just not true and yeah like are there people lying or they're thinking of the wrong day

or they're seeing the wrong boys i don't know but some of them aren't true because like look for instance um one of don moore's friends a fourth grader who lived on wilson street her name was kim williams she claimed to have seen stevie and michael going into the woods at robin hood hill entering at the ditch that led to the Devil's Den area. She said this was between 5.30 and 6 p.m. And she said she didn't see Chris Byers with them. She hadn't seen Chris all day. She also claimed that she'd seen their bikes parked by the road near Goodwin.

And later she'd seen three different boys leaving the woods off of Goodwin. And these were older boys, teenagers. There was one white male and two black males. So is this the same like a trio of teenage boys that Don Moore saw who offered her a shot and she thought they meant like drugs and needles? Or is Kim Williams just saying she saw these boys because Don Moore said she saw these boys. Yeah, I get what you're saying. Not all, as you continue to go through witness statements, some of them may be wrong and it may not be malicious. It may just be a misidentification or a misremembering of when they saw what they said they saw. So I get what you're saying. The first three, maybe. I still think I'm leaning,

I don't know where you're leaning, but i am leaning towards the idea that they walk down to the woods it doesn't sound like any of these witnesses and i should let you finish but it doesn't sound like any of these witnesses are going to say or have said you know i saw the boys and they were actually with a an adult or they were with some other boys it wasn't just the three of them there were multiple people yeah we're gonna we're gonna have eyewitnesses who say that okay okay good so i'm gonna shut the up and let you get to it then but i mean like i know you said like these eyewitness statements like you're they're not they don't seem like maliciously misleading but you know what when you're the person like trying to put them all together and like freaking organize them it feels malicious man because i'm like who are you people i mean i'm giving you like a handful there are some

sightings that absolutely were not possible. Just random people who were like, oh, I was driving and they ran out in front of my car and like I almost hit them. Like there's no way. And it's like, why are you inserting yourself into this and making it more difficult when you have three boys lives on the line and like trying to figure out what happened to them and you're just coming in here with your random bullshit that I now have to try to piece together and make sense of and it hurts my head so it feels malicious to me man it feels malicious it definitely has it happens a lot especially with

with high profile cases you get thousands of leads and 90 of them are not related and and i know this wasn't as high profile at this moment because it was relatively new, but I think for this specific area, everybody in the community was talking about it and involved and wanted to be involved in some way, whether that was to help or whether that was just insert themselves in the story, because it was a talk of the town at that point. I don't know. I don't know what their motives were, their intentions, but I'd like to think for the most part, because my experience, we may have some shitty witnesses, but at the core, they're trying to do the right thing. They're just not very, I say, I've said it since we started crime weekly. I would always start by

saying, don't tell me what you think. Tell me what you know. Like, even if you're, if you're somewhat doubting the timeframe, just tell me that. And I'll just, I won't even write it down. I only want stuff that you're a doubting the timeframe, just tell me that. And I'll just, I won't even write it down. I only want stuff that you're 100% certain about. You know what it reminds me of, honestly? Because a lot of these people who gave all these random nonsensical statements started coming out like weeks and months after when they'd already arrested suspects. And then all of a sudden they were seeing the suspects by the woods and nobody had said they saw them by the woods before, but then they're arrested.

And all of a sudden like, oh, we saw and jason and jesse like creeping out of the woods and damien was taking pictures of us from the bush like all of these you know what it reminds me of salem massachusetts during the witch trials man one girl comes out one girl comes out and she's like this freaking bitch haunted me and sent the devil after me and then her friend comes out and she's like, this freaking bitch haunted me and sent the devil after me. And then her friend comes out and she's like, yeah, she sent the devil and haunted me too. And she made me sign the devil's book. And every time another girl pops up like, oh, yeah. Oh, Goody Miller did that to me too.

And it's like everybody's got a freaking story all of a sudden. But none of y'all had a story before. The first girl had a story. And then you all saw she was getting attention and you were like I want attention too and like look at me look at me I'm in so this is exactly West Memphis Arkansas is Salem Massachusetts in just a different time and everybody had to jump on the bandwagon and everybody to see something and not all of a sudden everybody has a story about Damien setting a spell on them and he

had like a witch's gathering in the woods and they went to these, they were peering in through the leaves at this witch's gathering and they were naked and jumping around the fire. It's bananas, bananas. The people of that town should be ashamed of themselves, honestly, ashamed. On that note, let's take a break. Let's take a break. Okay, we're back. I just want to say one more thing about Kim Williams, who was Dawn Moore's friend. She saw those three teenage boys leaving the woods, allegedly, and then she said later she witnessed those same three boys entering one of the four houses located to the south of Goodwin on the west side of the street. So did the police ever go and knock on this door and find out if these three boys lived there? Doesn't look like it. But anyways,

all of those eyewitness sightings sort of got overshadowed when someone else came forward 16 years later, and her statement cast some doubt on the original timeline. Jamie Clark Ballard was 13 years old at the time of the murders, and she was friends with Chris Byers' stepbrother, Ryan. At the time, she lived just three doors down from Stevie Branch, who lived with his mother Pam, his stepfather Terry Hobbs, and his little sister Amanda. In her affidavit, Jamie Ballard writes, quote, I knew Stevie because he was a neighborhood kid that I saw and spoke to.

Stevie had a real blonde hair that was spiked up and easy to spot. I also knew Christopher Byers because I was good friends with Ryan, his brother. I knew Michael Moore because he lived across the street from Ryan Clark and Christopher Byers, and he was a good friend of Christopher Byers. I often saw Terry Hobbs on Macaulay Street, as well as Stevie Branch, Amanda Hobbs, and Pam Hobbs. Terry and Pam were frequently outside watching their kids and neighborhood kids playing. As a kid in the neighborhood, I would see Terry Hobbs as I was coming and going from school and as I was playing in the neighborhood. On May 5, 1993, I was walking home from school with Ryan Clark like I did most days. On my way home, I passed the Byers house. Mark Byers

was in the driveway yelling to Ryan, telling him to find his brother Christopher and tell him to come home. This happened at approximately 3.15 to 3.30 p.m. I got to my house approximately 3.45 p.m. Later in the evening, approximately between 5.30 and 6.30 p.m., I saw Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers playing in my backyard. My backyard is very large. There were not any privacy fences between the two houses, between my house and the Hobbs house or behind my house. So Stevie, Michael, and Christopher had come down and were playing in my backyard. It was easy to see the boys in my backyard because my house had a big picture window that looks out on the backyard. The boys were playing and screwing around. Stevie was riding a bike. There was also a bayou and ditch in the backyard. I remember my mother did not like

the kids playing in the backyard because she was scared somebody could get hurt in the bayou or the ditch. Stevie, Michael, and Christopher were playing around the ditch. I was active in my church and attending Wednesday night church youth group meetings with my sister, Brandy. Some people from the church would pick us up to take us to meetings. At 6.30 p.m. on May 5th, which was a Wednesday, my sister and I went out the front door of my house to go out to the car to meet the people who were picking us up to take us to Wednesday night youth group. As I came out into the front yard, I saw Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers come racing between my house and the house next door that was in the direction of the Hobbs house. As Stevie, Michael, and Christopher came zooming by, I yelled to Christopher,

Christopher, Ryan says for you to get home, because I remembered Mark Byers had told Ryan to find Christopher and get him home. Christopher smarted off to me and said, I don't have to do what you say. I shrugged and said, okay, don't go home. While I was on the front yard, Terry Hobbs hollered at Stevie, Michael, and Christopher to get back down to the Hobbs house. I recall that Stevie was on a bike. I could see Stevie's much younger sibling, a little girl, was playing down at the Hobbs house in their driveway. It looked like Terry was telling the boys to get back down to the Hobbs house because Terry Hobbs was watching Stevie's sister play and wanted all the kids together. Then I got in the car and went to church, end quote.

So this obviously sounds like a typical encounter between a parent and their child. One I've been a part of many times. I'm sure you have too. You know, your kid's playing and you want them to come home, whether they have to eat dinner or you have to go or whatever. And you're kind of like yelling at them, like, get over here, you know, like pull away from the kids that you're playing with. So nothing about that seems suspicious or off, except for the fact that Terry Hobbs has claimed since day one to not have seen any of the three boys at all on March 5th, 1993. And Jamie Ballard says she's 100% positive of what she saw. And she

said if Terry's claiming he didn't see the boys at all that day, he's lying. And she said that initially for years, she had no idea that Terry had claimed to not have seen the boys because this case like blew up and became famous finally when the West Memphis Three were getting their day in court and everything. And then all these details started coming out. But before then, the average person wouldn't know what Terry Hobbs was telling the police. When she found out that Terry Hobbs was telling the police he hadn't seen his steps on it at all that day, she was like, he's lying. You know, and if she'd known that he'd done that, she would have come forward sooner and

said something. But basically, she's saying from 530 to 630, these boys are playing in her backyard. And at 630, she sees Terry calling them and saying, come home. And she said she saw those three boys run in his direction. So. So you think, are you saying that you think there's more to it? I'm trying to, you think that, you think that he's involved? Yeah. I mean, if, if you're going to ask me, like, do who, if I think it's somebody that knew the boys and somebody who was around and a local and knew where they might play and things like that. Yeah, I'm looking at Terry Hobbs or I'm looking at John Mark Byers. Absolutely. Like those two are far more suspicious to me than most anybody else in this case. And that doesn't mean they did anything. OK. Allegedly, don't come for me, Terry Hobbs, man. Like I'm just saying, you're suspicious AF and you didn't tell the truth all

the time. And we're going to get into it actually right now. We're going to get more into Terry Hobbs later when we go over the parents of these kids, because we're going to talk about John Mark Byers as well and Terry Hobbs and their backgrounds. What kind of makes them sketchy and suspicious? But yeah, I mean, if Jamie Ballard is correct and she saw Terry at 630 telling those boys to come home and they ran in his direction, that makes him the last person to see them. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how he would forget about that. Well, he didn't forget about it if he's responsible for killing them. Right.

That's what I'm saying. It's not an honest mistake. Oh, what i did see them that would that's that wouldn't not an honest mistake at all because that's 6 30 because remember right but what can i make the argument that maybe she's wrong i mean we talked about a lot of witnesses getting it wrong could she be yeah but she's got some specific details she's like i know i go to church at this time on this day and me and my sister walked out of the house at this time to get picked up by the people who'd bring us to church on wednesday night may 5th was a wednesday night i saw the boys playing in my backyard for an hour

okay and i saw them through this big picture window like she's got the details where all the other people are like it could have been them i saw them from behind, blonde, spiky hair. You know, like, come on, man. Could she be wrong? Sure. But also Terry Hobbs could have seen the boys that night. Yeah, I mean, if he did, he's got some questions to answer. I mean, that's to say the least. So remember that Terry Hobbs,

he had dropped his wife Pam Hobbs off to work at the Catfish Island restaurant at 5 p.m. And he didn't pick her up again until 9 p.m. So there's like four hours. What was he doing in that four hours? He had promised Pam that he would keep looking for Stevie, right? But according to the testimony of David Jacoby, who's one of Terry's friends, Terry wasn't really looking for Stevie that much right off the bat. David Jacoby said that Terry was at his house by 5.30 p.m. And at that point, David lived with his wife, Bobbi, and his two young children at 506 North 17th Street. And he also worked with Terry

at the Memphis Ice Cream Company. David said he believes that on May 5th, before Terry stopped over, he saw Terry Stepson, Stevie Branch on a bike riding past his house and there were two other boys with him. And one of the boys was on a bike and one of the boys was on a skateboard. That's what David Jacoby said. And it's worth noting that the street Dana Moore saw the three boys riding on around 6 p.m. was North 17th Street. And that is where David Jacoby lived. So David Jacoby said that Terry came to his house with little Amanda around like 5, 530. And while Amanda played with toys, he and Terry played guitars for about an hour.

And during that time, Terry said nothing about Stevie being missing. And he said nothing about the fact that he's supposed to be looking for him. And David claims that he did ask where Stevie was while they were playing guitars. And Terry answered that Stevie was riding his bike. After an hour of guitars, putting that right around like the 6.15, 6.30 time, Terry abruptly stood up and said he had to go find Stevie because Stevie needed to be home before dark. So he told David Jacoby that he was gonna, you know, go home and see if Stevie was there. And David Jacoby said that he's like 90% sure that Terry left Amanda with him while he did that. So David said that Terry was gone for a while and when he came back,

it was dark and he still hadn't found Stevie. So David offered to go out and help him look. David Jacoby said, quote, Terry and I drove around the neighborhood for approximately 10 to 15 minutes looking for Stevie. We drove near some apartments. We did not stop at any houses or talk to anyone at this point. Terry then dropped me off at my house and said he was going to check a few other places for Stevie. I believe Terry again left alone with Amanda staying at my house. After a while, Terry drove back to my house. I again went with Terry to ride around and look for Stevie. We drove two more times nearly the same route we had before. I remember that again we went by the apartment complex and saw some kids playing.

Terry told the kids that he was looking for a little blonde-headed boy. A little black girl told Terry that she'd seen them and there were some boys riding their bikes near the woods near the apartments, which was the Robin Hood Hills woods. Terry again took me home and dropped me off because it was getting dark and I was going to change clothes and get flashlights to search further. I do not know where Terry went, but I expected him to come back and get me. I believe he took Amanda with him. I changed clothes, but Terry never showed back up. End quote. Now, Terry Hobbs would speak to the police more than once about his movements that night, and he would reiterate that he had not seen his stepson or Stevie's two friends, but he also gave multiple different stories for his whereabouts that evening. And the strange proclivities of Terry Hobbs

and the reported tension in his relationship with his stepson, Stevie, those things would come out later, even to the point where Terry's own wife, Stevie's mother, was like, I think he's responsible for what happened to my son and my son's friends. And we're going to talk about those details and more about Terry Hobbs as well as John Mark Byers in the coming episodes.

Okay. Now, do you, so obviously because you're going so in depth into it, there's a lot you laid out here. And I think on the surface, I know my wheels are turning, but again, we're going off a lot of statements and you have to look at those statements through a filter as well, right? People have biases, people have certain opinions, they may see things a certain way. And then there's also, as we just talked about at length with other witnesses, sometimes they're malicious in nature. Sometimes they're just, they're wrong. They're just making a mistake. And it's no intention at all to mislead the law enforcement. They're just making a mistake and it's no intention at all to mislead the law enforcement. They're just inaccurate. I feel like because you're going so in depth with it, there are a lot of people out there that do believe Terry Hobbs is responsible for these boys, their murder. Is that fair to say?

Okay. And I can see why. Just from what you're laying out here, I can see why someone would think that this is something where if you're taking everything at face value, right, without giving any exculpatory evidence, any alibi, anything like that, where maybe Terry, if he was sitting right here next to us, he would feel he would have some answers for some of this or he would have an explanation. I don't know. But he might have a rebuttal or two. I would assume he would. Do you know if law enforcement ever considered him a person of interest or a suspect? I think so. They interviewed him again years later about this David Jacoby statement. I mean,

this is a statement David Jacoby gave to the police. And yeah, I definitely think they considered him. Okay. Do you think that maybe this played into, I'm sure there's a lot more to it, but the eventual exoneration of the three individuals who were let out of prison after being charged with it? Things like this raises the level of reasonable doubt where it's like, hey, yeah, they had some things that maybe didn't look good for him at the time, but you also have these other suspects or these other persons of interest who could equally be responsible for these boys' deaths. Yes. I do think that because there was hair, there was some hairs found on these bindings, and one of the hairs happened to be consistent with Terry Hobbs, his hair. And once again, that's not saying that Terry Hobbs is responsible for these deaths.

The hair could have come from Terry Hobbs or it could have come from somebody else who just had consistent hair or the hair could have been picked up by any of these boys at any point while being in Terry's home. We know that all three boys were in the Hobbs home that day, right? That's right. Before they went missing. So that could be a reasonable explanation, but it was enough reasonable doubt to help exonerate the West Memphis Three, yes. Okay. All right. Just the fact that Terry Hobbs was Stevie's stepfather. And I know people don't like to consider these things because I know there's a lot of great

step parents out there. And there's a lot of people who are parenting children who are not related to them by blood and they love them just as much as they love their own children. But the facts are the facts. And the statistics say that when a child is living in a home with an unrelated adult, their chances of being, you know, victims of violence raised by 50%. Okay, so those are the starting statistics. And two of these boys had non-related adults living in their home. Michael Moore was the only child who had both

his parents in the home with him, both of his biological parents. Stevie had Terry Hobbs as a stepfather, and Christopher Byers had John Mark Byers as a stepfather. And let me tell you that neither one of these men are somebody I would want to have as my stepfather. So right off the bat, I think we have an elevated risk of abuse and violence towards these children simply from having these stepfathers and because of the people that these stepfathers were. I'm not even going to dispute what you said. I don't know the statistics, to be honest with you. I was raised by my stepfather. I call him dad. I grew up in a pretty good situation, but I know I could be in the minority on that one. So that's all I'll say about that.

But I will say in general, when you have something this tragic, at least from law enforcement perspective, when you have something this tragic, you obviously have to investigate the people closest to the children. That's a no-brainer. That's law enforcement 101. You always want to look at relatives, friends, people who would have access to them and wouldn't necessarily raise any flags if they were alone with them. But I think there's always this level of caution when you're going on circumstantial evidence, right? Nothing tangible, nothing specific where you're looking at a potential situation where these parents have already been traumatized. They've lost their children. It's the biggest fear, I think, for most parents, I would hope for most parents.

So although you have to do it, it's your job. I feel like law enforcement, even if they were really deeply looking at Terry or anybody else for that matter, that's not something that we may necessarily know about on the surface. And I'm not even saying they did, but because of the fact that it could be re-traumatizing them, I just put myself in the shoes if that was my son or my daughter and I had anything to do with my child's disappearance or death and law enforcement was looking at me for even longer than a second, I'm going to lose my cool. So it's one of those things where I think law enforcement approaches it with kid gloves on to be careful. But I do think behind closed doors, even though it appears that it might've been public as well, but behind closed doors that we're probably looking at all the parents that didn't have solid alibis because based on what you're looking at here with one child being injured more than the others, you have to wonder if it was a targeted attack and who would know that the children were possibly heading in that direction and that they weren't home.

It would be the people in their homes. So I get, I get why we have to do it. It's a, it's a part of the job, but I can also see why even with all this eyewitness testimony regarding Terry law enforcement may just be discrediting it may just not be looking at or they may just it's the obvious place for them to start I mean we know when a kid's kidnapped it's usually you know somebody they know a parent a family member that's like stranger kidnappings are so rare it's usually somebody that they know those are the statistics right so they that's the first place they should be going they should be speaking to the family first because nobody knows these kids and their movements and who they might have a problem with etc better than the parents and

yeah those are the the first place you go because they could be also responsible. And I mean, if you look at, you know, John Mark Byers and Melissa Byers, who, you know, were CIs for the Drug Task Force, could they have gotten into bed with somebody who was dangerous, who came after their son and killed their son, as well as his two friends who he just happened to be with? Was that a message that they were sending? Is that what was happening here?

It's a potential theory that the people have had but you wouldn't know any of that unless you talk to John Mark Byers and you talk to Melissa Byers and then they were also willing to like open up that that that path and say yes this could be what happened and let me tell you who the people are have a problem with me and that doesn't appear that that happened there turn off but the West Memphis Police Department's biggest lead, or at least what they thought was their biggest lead at the time, it came in the form of a seven-year-old boy named Aaron Hutchison. On May 6th, before the bodies were found, Aaron had told the police that he'd seen his friend Michael Moore after school. And Michael was talking to a tall black man with yellow teeth in a maroon car.

And according to Aaron, the man said that Michael's mother had sent him to pick Michael up from school, but Dana Moore said she hadn't. And why would she? The Moores lived very close to the elementary school. It didn't take Michael long to walk home every day, just a couple of minutes. But 20 days after that, after his first initial statement to the police, Aaron would have even more details to add about what he claimed happened to his friends. And he even claimed to basically have been present when his friends were like tortured

by these teenage boys, Damian Echols and Jason Baldwin and Jesse Miskelley. And Aaron said he was hiding in the tree and he watched as it happened. But the reason that Aaron was even in the presence of a police officer on that day was because he was with his mother, Vicki Hutchison. And Vicki had been brought in to answer questions about a $200 credit card charge that the owners of a local rest stop where she worked, I guess, had an issue with. Somebody's, a customer's credit card had been overcharged $200. And basically the owners of this rest stop thought that Vicki Hutchinson was the one who did it. They suspected her of being responsible. But the person, the police officer that Vicki and Aaron spoke to that day, Officer Don Bray, he sort of like pushed the credit card issue to the side when he found out that Victoria's son Aaron had been close friends with the missing boys. And he was like, what can I get

from this kid? I'm going to get some information from this kid. All these other police officers are out there trying to find these missing boys right now. I'm stuck behind this desk talking to this woman about some stupid, lame credit card charge. I want to be in the thick of it. I want to be in the action with these missing boys. So I'm going to call, you know, Gary Gitchell and let him know I got Aaron Hutchinson here and it could be a lead. And I'm going to like, you know, interview Aaron. So he picks up the phone to call it in. But that's when he finds out that they just found the bodies of the three missing boys.

And this is no longer a missing persons case. But now it's an active homicide investigation. So Officer Bray, he gets off the phone and he breaks the news gently to Victoria and Aaron. And that was when Victoria claimed that Stevie, Michael, and Chris had asked her the day before if Aaron could go with them to play in the woods at Robin Hood Hills. And she told them no now a week after this bray interviewed victoria and aaron again and by this time the rumor that the murders of the three boys was cult related had already permeated the police department and so officer bray asked victoria if she had any knowledge of cult activities in west memphis or if she knew about these devil worshiping groups

practicing in the area and of course, Victoria had plenty of information, and she would actually go undercover for the police, and she would claim that Damien and Jesse Miskelley Jr. had brought her to an SBAT, which is like a gathering of witches, and then everybody had gotten naked and smeared themselves with dirt and blood and had orgies and danced around a fire. And she was like forced to witness this. So she had lots of stories, but we're going to get there. Like, how? You know, how within a week of a triple murder or triple, you know, three little boys being murdered without enough time to actually conduct a thorough investigation? How would the police be thinking that the person or people who committed these murders were devil worshipers or part of a satanic cult? Like, how would that be the place that you went to after barely any time had passed. There seemed to be nothing of note at the crime scene that was blatantly screaming cult murder or devil-worshiping murder.

In fact, the police initially were surprised by how little blood there was at the crime scene, which had them wondering sort of early on if the actual murders had been committed elsewhere and if the Ditch of Devil's Den had simply been used as a drop-off location to hide the bodies and the evidence. You can tell in their early reports that they wondered this, like, there's not enough blood here for this to be a crime scene. There was actually no visible signs or indications of blood whatsoever. They didn't see any blood visible to their eye. On May 12th, the police had tested the area by the ditch with luminol,

and here's what they found. At a trail along the stream bed, an approximately 11-foot-high bluff overlooking the stream showed positive reactions for blood on either side of a tree, with more reaction happening on the right side of the tree

overlooking the stream. An area with used plastic sheeting west of the trail and west of the bluff also showed positive reactions for blood. At the west bank of the stream bed, to the right of some trees, there was an area of positive reaction where two of the victims had been placed after being pulled from the water. In the stream bed below the waterline, positive luminal tests indicated where one of the victims had been found in the water. And on the east bank of the stream bed were a pile of sticks and a depression in the soil, which also showed a positive reaction in a concentrated area. North of this point, there were positive luminol tests in high concentration where the third victim had been placed upon removal from the water. And north of that, near some tree roots, another large area of concentration of luminol was detected. Trace amounts of positive luminol reaction were noted on the slope west of the area

where two of the victims had been placed. And they concluded at the end of all of that, looking at this map of positive luminol reactions, they concluded that the traces of presumed blood along the trail and at the bluff, so that 11-foot high bluff, and one of the slopes, this appeared to be transfer blood left by the rescue and recovery teams. But the areas on the east bank where that pile of sticks were and that depression were and the presumed blood near the tree roots, they believe that this indicated activity to the victims. Perhaps these areas of blood happened when the boys were attacked. So at the end of the day, looking at those luminal reactions, what stood out at the scene to these police officers as cult related? I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, on the surface, nothing about this particular crime scene screams to me that there was some Santanic type ritual going on where you would expect to see something happening in that area that would suggest it was something occurring before or after these homicides. But maybe if you're on the ground, if your boots on the ground in West Memphis and you're a police officer and you're part of the intelligence team, maybe there's information they're receiving prior to this that suggests there is some devil worshiping going on in the woods. I don't know what would have led them to believe this. I think you said initially that there was already some information about the three individuals where they felt like these guys were up to this type of thing in the woods at some point. And I'm just throwing

this out there. I have nothing in my little notepad here that says, oh yeah, they had prior intelligence that said there was some type of devil worshiping going on in there. So maybe they felt like, okay, we think our victims walked in on something, right? We think our victims walked into this and whoever killed them was already here. So the question you have to ask yourself is why was the offender or offenders already here? Were they drinking and partying? No sign of cans or beer cans or anything like that. Were they fishing? Were they camping? What were they doing here before the boys arrived? Well, maybe they were practicing some type of Santanic ritual and these boys walked into it. And now this creates an opportunity for them,

the offenders to carry out what they want, what they're thinking about doing and doing it in a way where they're not exposed to the community because the victims came to them. So there's going to be no connection back to them because the first time they encountered them was in the woods themselves. You can weigh in on that if you want,

cause I see you're making some, I see you're processing it, but I also have a question for you. I just want to say that i think it was stupid that they waited until may 12th to do the luminol testing at the scene because it they found these kids on may 6 so six days later it had rained once i mean it's just why even bother at that point but um because who knows like some of this blood could have been washed away. You're not getting an accurate representation or depiction of the crime scene. Like who knows what you're even looking at at this point. But what's your question?

So it's more of like I'm asking you a lot. I think you know the answer to this. But let's assume for the sake of this conversation that the boys hadn't been moved there after law enforcement searched the area, that they were there the whole time, right? They were in the river. They didn't find them, right? They did this extensive search and they couldn't find three eight-year-old boys that were in only two. I don't think they looked in the water. Well, my point being, you think you would look in the water because it's only two and a half feet.

You would think you'd take a look down there and see if the boys were there because they could have drowned, right? It's supposedly an extensive search. My point being this, they couldn't locate three young boys in the woods, in the water, but we're to believe that they canvassed the entire wooded area, which from the map that I'm looking at, it's pretty, it's not thousands of acres, but you would, I think it'd be pretty easy for them to miss the actual crime scene. I know the bodies were dumped in the water. How far they were assaulted or murdered from that water could be anywhere there.

If we're going to go with the idea that these boys were identified or targeted by a trucker, I would assume that they were closer to the truck stop when they were identified. They could have been killed or brutally beaten closer to that area and then transferred to the water and dumped. So I just don't know how this police department could say with, with certainty that they only located blood that was due to transfer and that they probably didn't miss where the actual crime scene was. I just don't know how they would I know that'd be hard for a huge police department to go through the entire Woods and try to locate us few spots of blood from this assault you would expect there to be a lot

but this is days later as you said and Who knows where the actual assault took place? I don't think it took place right next to the river or the water whatever you want to call it It's somewhere else, but I do think it's in the woods i was just thinking that too as you were talking because i was like yeah it could have been anywhere in the woods and they just brought them and they didn't really look anywhere they just kind of like focused around that creek bed so that's why what you're saying and i'm like okay yeah that's fine man yeah they saw i said that's fine but like if they couldn't find three human beings, I don't have a lot of confidence in them finding

traces of blood from a crime scene that happened days prior. Dude, this police force legitimately changed the case file number to end in 666 because they thought that these kids were like devil worshipers. Yeah, I think it's tunnel vision. This is what we're dealing with. And then they were like, worshipers. Yeah, it's tunnel vision. This is what we're dealing with. And then they were like, no, we absolutely didn't do that. And then it came out years later that that's absolutely what they did. It was like 665 or something or 655 in the original reports.

And then they changed it to be 666. So, like, I have no faith in them at all, man. Yeah, there's definitely practices. I'm not even going as far as saying it was malicious or definitely some bad police work. But I think any police department, if it's a smaller department to try to find the original crime scene where it could be anywhere in that wooded area, I don't have a lot of faith in it. I don't know how many people were out there searching.

I'm assuming with Luminol, they had to spray the areas down. That would have been an extensive process to go through and process that entire wooded area for the original crime scene. I am of the belief as we're starting to round out this episode that it did happen. Everything happened in the woods. You can't leave them in the wooded area. They're going to be found easily if they're just laying there. So they tried to hide their bodies by dropping them in the water.

But how far those boys were from the water when the assaults occurred? Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine. We were never going to know exactly where it occurred. They don't know where it occurred. They don't even know if it happened in the woods. But looking at the map, that wooded area is pretty extensive. And if you're if you're in the mindset that it was a trucker, I'm thinking the assault,

if you're watching the map right now, happened closer to the the truck stop and then they were brought over to this pipe area later if you're to believe the truck theory i don't personally believe that i think it's someone who's familiar with the area i think they were in there for whatever reason i don't know could be devil worshiping i don't know but i think the people that were in there who killed these little boys were already there for another reason and they heard them coming or saw them Satan. That's the last place my mind's going. And in that place, nothing had to really stand out about the scene or even about the murders to make people think it had something to do with like devil worshipers. Because all there had to be was enough mystery and enough violence to lead the good Christian people of West Memphis to believe or to feel that no God-fearing person could have committed an act as brutal and disgusting as this one. First of all, it was reported that Stevie Branch had bite marks on him. And I suppose in a way, some of the abrasions and stuff on his body did resemble bite marks. So it was reported that Stevie Branch had bite marks on him.

And then obviously Christopher Byers had been castrated. So to the people of West Memphis, to the police, they were like, oh, this is a sign of some ritualistic kind of murder. Now, add to that the night the murders took place, it was a full moon. Okay, I guess that's all you need. Full moon and possible ritualistic injuries on these kids. And honestly, 1993 was prime time for a satanic panic. West Memphis, Arkansas was and still is a very religious area located right in the middle of the Bible Belt. On top of that, the previous three decades before the 90s, I mean, they had been priming people to see the devil everywhere they looked. Now, satanic panic refers to a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of satanic ritual abuse starting in the 1980s in the United States. And it's now believed that this all was sort of kicked off by a book that was published in 1980, a book that has since been discredited. And this book was called Michelle Remembers. And it was published by a woman named Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist husband,

Lawrence Paisder. So this book was like an autobiography of sorts where Lawrence Paisder discussed his therapy with Michelle in the 1970s. And that means that she was his patient before she was his wife. So red flags all over the place there. But Paister had started treating Michelle for depression at his private clinic in British Columbia, Canada in 1973. And by 1976, Michelle was telling her doctor and her future husband that she needed and wanted to tell him something, but she couldn't remember what it was. There was trauma that she had that was causing her to feel depressed and feel sad, but she couldn't put her finger on it and she couldn't remember what it was. So over the next 14 months, Paisdor used hypnosis like frauds. And yeah, definitely like not kind of frauds, like they were frauds. But this book, Paister's book, was used by prosecutors in another satanic panic example, the McMartin preschool trials,

which happened in 1984. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were falsely charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. And these claims were bizarre. It wasn't just sexual abuse. It was said that they were like witches and devil worshipers. And one of the teachers, they had seen him flying around. And they said that the teachers and the people at the preschool had a hot air balloon that they would transport the kids in. But when they couldn't use their hot air balloon, they were using these like tunnels underneath the school that led to these secret chambers where all of these like ritualistic things happened. And it was crazy. It was absolutely insane.

And before you knew it, FBI agents, police officers, lawyers, and social workers were doing their own research into the occult so they could be prepared for whatever happened. And I remember one FBI agent, I read an interview and he was like, we didn't like necessarily believe in this whole like Satan worshiping thing, but like at the same time, it seemed to be like popping up a lot. And so we had to obviously do our research into like what it could be and what the signs of it were. And once people started doing that, they kind of just all like bought into it. You know, it was like all of these professionals, police officers, lawyers, all of these people were like, yeah, we buy this. Like everybody is just doing like satanic worship and torturing people and stuff.

And then according to the New York Times, these professionals would share what they had learned at conferences and seminars. The New York Times said, quote, they handed out satanic calendars, traded pamphlets about symbols like the cross of Nero and the horned hand, and copied lists of supposed occult organizations, which included a collective of feminist astrologers in Minnesota. A map was displayed during a May 1985 episode of 2020 showing satanic activity throughout the U.S., and in this episode, they basically tied all of these things to devil worship, like animal mutilation is tied to devil worship, along with enjoyment of rock music or heavy metal music, with the host of 2020 saying, quote, today we have found that Satan is alive and thriving, or at least plenty of people believe he is. His followers

are extremely secretive, but found in all walks of life, end quote. And then three years after that, Geraldo Rivera did a whole segment on Satan. He interviewed children who had been like part of satanic abuse rituals, and he interviewed Ozzy Osbourne, who, as we know, was kind of weird and biting heads off of bats and things. The bats were alive, just doing all sorts of crazy stuff. And this wide-held belief went back even further to, honestly, 1969, a year that was monopolized by the evil-inspired cult murders of Charles Manson and his family. And that same year, Anton LaVey published the Satanic Bible, which became known as the seminal work of modern Satanism. Then in 1971, The Exorcist was released in book form, and that was at the top of the best sellers list.

And then within no time in 1973, it was a blockbuster movie. And then in 1978, the world watched in horror as the Jonestown tragedy unfolded, and the 70s also saw a string of seemingly evil serial killers that appeared to operate in ritualistic ways. From the Zodiac Killer to the Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, the American public began to develop a bone-deep fear that you couldn't

trust anyone and everyone was hiding something. Even if they looked normal at first glance, they could still be worshiping Satan behind closed doors. And then in 1989, a documentary titled Hell's Bells warned average citizens to be wary of the dangers of rock and roll and heavy metal music because these were more than just songs. They were like devil poems that were responsible for promiscuous sex, drug use, violence. And honestly, rock and roll and heavy metal music were the music choice of the devil himself. And maybe that's why everyone fixated on Damien Echols so quickly, right? Because that was also his music of choice, as most kids his age at that time. And Damien wore black, and he kept to himself, and he talked about strange things, and he did make references to

the devil. And he liked Anton LaVey, and was kind of like into all this dark, weird stuff. He struggled with mental health. There was some criminal behavior. And overall, he was an outsider. He was somebody who maybe couldn't be trusted. He wasn't even one of those devil worshipers hiding and being secret. He was like right out in the open talking about it and, you know, making it known what he was into. And that's really what we're going to talk about when we come back. We're going to talk about our three suspects, Damien, Damien Echols, and his two friends, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Miskelley Jr. And we're going to talk about what about them made them such big targets for, you know, being considered. I mean, they're teenage kids. Teenage kids. I think Damien was the oldest. He was 18.

Jessie, Miss Kelly was 17, I think. And Jason Baldwin was like 16 at the time. I'm sorry if I don't have those completely right. But these are young kids, you know, young boys. I guess they're teenage boys. They're not young boys, but young enough where you'd have to have something pretty substantial to think that these three teenage boys just took it upon themselves one day to like murder three eight-year-olds in the woods in this horrendous way and and did the police and did the the community have enough to think that damien jesse miss kelly and jason were responsible for this horrendous crime did they have enough that's what we're going to discuss next time yeah i'm looking forward to diving into that because obviously that's a big point of this whole case is west memphis three that's who i said earlier that people think about is these three individuals so i'm looking forward to getting into that to see

how we got where we got to and where we are today and as far as the devil worshiping thing i don't have a ton of experience with it i had a few cases uh only with animals where we as investigators stumbled on remnants of a satanic ritual. And usually what you'd see in our case, it was usually chickens. I think I've mentioned this before where they're killed a certain way, they're left a certain way. There's usually some remnants, whether it's candles or a fire or more specifically, they're more detailed. There's actual spray paints of symbols, things of like that. Some type of ritual had taken place prior to us being there. With this, these murders seem more barbaric. They seem just like they were spontaneous. They were in the moment. They were aggressive. And they were meant for one thing and one thing only.

It was to hurt these little boys. It doesn't seem like it was very calculated. It seems like they were killed violently and there was no real process to it. It was just hurt them as much as they could in a very short period of time and then dispose of them as best as they could. So to me, I don't think the satanic ritual theory holds up too much. Now, maybe when we start getting into the three individuals who were arrested and their background and what they've been accused of in the past or what they had been connected to before this incident, maybe I'll see where it came from. But as of right now, on the surface, just based on the crime scene itself, first off, we don't even have a crime scene.

We have one crime scene where the boys were found, but we don't know exactly where they were killed to this day. So if we knew where that was, maybe we would feel differently. If you told me they were found 25, 30 feet away from the river and there were signs of, you know, signs of the devil and candles and different things. And the dirt was laid out a certain way and their bodies had been positioned a certain way when they were found. Maybe this doesn't sound like that to me. So without that, I think it's a leap to just assume this was some satanic ritual. I think it could be as simple as

whoever was out there had this in the back of their mind for years and just never really had the opportunity. And they were out there or multiple people were out there and these boys just walked up on them and they couldn't resist. Now, I will say, to be fair, right, to the other side, sometimes like the in popular culture or in like media, they'll make it seem like, what did these boys do? All they did was like Metallica and wear black. And that's not necessarily accurate. Right. That's that's not as cut and dry. And like, yes, Damien was very upfront about how he kind of like was into that dark stuff and like read on to Anton LaVey and like was into, you know, kind of like satanic stuff. But like, also, I want to say, you know, I mean, mean, I went to high school, not around that time.

I don't know. Was it? No, it was like a little bit later, but the kids in high school with me were kind of like into that stuff. There's like a whole group of kids and they were like always wearing black and, you know, always like drawing. What are those like things that, what is the star circle? Yeah.

Yeah. A pentagram, like always drawing those like on their notebooks and stuff. And nobody was like, oh, they're gonna go out there and kill somebody. You were just like, they're kind of weird. You know, like, and you just kind of steered clear.

So I don't think that, I wouldn't necessarily say that anything Damien or Jesse Miskelley Jr. or Jason Baldwin did was like out of the ordinary for a typical teenager who's kind of like into that stuff and like going through that phase. But in West Memphis, Arkansas, it was definitely like singled out, like taboo behavior. So it's kind of one of those perfect storm things, like perfect time place or imperfect if you're if you're Damien and Jason and Jesse but it just kind of all came together so it wasn't like oh they liked they liked heavy metal music and they wore black and that's why they were targeted no they like did some stuff and they said

some stuff that was counterculture and out of the ordinary but it was in my opinion for shock value because they were like lost kids and they wanted attention and they wanted to be angsty and push back against society and you know culture and mainstream and they wanted to be counterculture and that's pretty normal so yeah that's where we'll leave it because i'm losing my voice well i think i think i think people usually want to let the crime scene dictate what you think was the reason for behind the motive for behind something. And we don't have a crime scene, as I just said. So it sounds to me like this was reverse engineered. Sounds to me like law enforcement had a person they thought was good for this and Damien and his friends. And then they started to think about Damien and what he was

into. And it happened to be something like you just said, a little non-traditional. So that's where they came from. Hey, we know it's Damien. Soien so why did he do it oh he's a devil worshiper that's why it is and that's where the theory comes from they don't have any tangible evidence that the crime scene is suggested it's just that the person that they thought was good for it was into that so they reverse engineered it and that's not how you conduct an investigation you got to let the breadcrumbs take you down the trail so i agree with you we'll see what happens i'm looking forward to it i know your voice is going thanks for being a trooper um guys as always if you want to check us out you can check out us on instagram crime weekly pod we're also on twitter same handle if you want to check out the coffee company you're starting to see probably

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As always, we appreciate you joining us. Uh, be safe out there and we will see you next week. Bye everyone. Thank you.